Hey guys, M21, I just wanted to hear some thoughts from other men who’ve gone through this.
I’m three weeks out of a breakup. We were together for a little over two years. It was a very deep, intense kind of love, the natural, once-in-a-lifetime feeling. She was everything I looked for: kind, smart, caring, honest, and pure. We broke up mutually and with love, mostly due to circumstance, I study abroad in the U.S. (I’m from Europe), and with senior year ahead and the future uncertain, we both felt this was the better choice. We didn’t want to hold each other back. There’s still so much love between us, which makes it all the harder.
Letting go of each other has been one of the most painful things I’ve ever had to do. It hurts deeply, not because anything went wrong, but because everything was so right, and we still had to walk away.
That said, I’m doing okay. I’m handling it better than I expected. I’ve been keeping myself busy: going to the gym, reading, spending time with friends and family, working on an internship. Life’s full, and the pain is fading slowly.
But there’s one thing I can’t shake, I can’t sleep. She keeps me up almost every night until 3 or 4 AM. Just memories, thoughts, wondering how she’s doing, missing her warmth. I’m exhausted during the day and I don’t want this to become a habit or mess up my progress.
Any advice on how to quiet my mind at night? I’m not looking to get back together, I know we broke up for the right reasons. Just looking for ways to let her go more fully, especially during those long quiet nights.
Thanks in advance.
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Hey guys, M21, I just wanted to hear some thoughts from other men who’ve gone through this.
I’m three weeks out of a breakup. We were together for a little over two years. It was a very deep, intense kind of love, the natural, once-in-a-lifetime feeling. She was everything I looked for: kind, smart, caring, honest, and pure. We broke up mutually and with love, mostly due to circumstance, I study abroad in the U.S. (I’m from Europe), and with senior year ahead and the future uncertain, we both felt this was the better choice. We didn’t want to hold each other back. There’s still so much love between us, which makes it all the harder.
Letting go of each other has been one of the most painful things I’ve ever had to do. It hurts deeply, not because anything went wrong, but because everything was so right, and we still had to walk away.
That said, I’m doing okay. I’m handling it better than I expected. I’ve been keeping myself busy: going to the gym, reading, spending time with friends and family, working on an internship. Life’s full, and the pain is fading slowly.
But there’s one thing I can’t shake, I can’t sleep. She keeps me up almost every night until 3 or 4 AM. Just memories, thoughts, wondering how she’s doing, missing her warmth. I’m exhausted during the day and I don’t want this to become a habit or mess up my progress.
Any advice on how to quiet my mind at night? I’m not looking to get back together, I know we broke up for the right reasons. Just looking for ways to let her go more fully, especially during those long quiet nights.
Thanks in advance.
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These things take time. She will linger for some time. You are grieving a loss. Take care and look after yourself. These feelings show you’re a normal human being with emotional depth.
It’s still very fresh, so it’s natural to feel this way and experience what you’re going through right now, especially that you loved each other so much. It takes time to heal, give it at least 2-3 months, after couple month you’ll feel less emotionally drained. I know that it might be very hard to go no contact at all right away as it’s still fresh, but no contact helps a lot, and no social media interactions and checking. It helps to prevent you from falling into emotional low if your ex is trying to sabotage you
Older guy here, not gone through this, but with an opinion: How about giving up the studying and going back? Why is the studying so much more important? You broke up for “reasons”. Maybe “reasons” are not a good way to be happy. How about beeing unreasonable and caring more for your happyness? Can’t you study close to her?
I don’t have a magic bullet for your situation. However, I was in a similar spot to you at your age. I ended up giving up so much and setting myself back so far in life because I said fuck it I love her and nothing else matters.
Other stuff matters
So while I’m sure it hurts and you’re lonely at night, you are doing the right thing. Just know that.
Hopefully, I’ll get better with time
Take deep breaths and focus on your breathing when you get into bed rather than allow your mind to wonder as it will only be natural that you think of her as it sounds like it was a good relationship so there will be lots of happy memories.
You can take solace in the fact that she has already found someone else. That’s why she is so keen on moving on and “not holding each other back”.
Wear yourself out physically. Gym. Yoga class. Go for a run in the evening. By the end of the day, sleep just becomes natural you’re so tired.
And also, know that you never know what the future holds. You left on good terms and 2 years is a long time. She or you won’t soon forget. Time will help.
And then one day, you just think of them less and less, the impression and memory is there, but it’s not as hard hitting as it once was.
You’re doing great work. Focus on yourself. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you! 🙂
remember all the times she left the bathroom a disaster area.
One thing that helps is doing meditation. For example I do breath work. At first it seems like it doesn’t give you any benefits, but after a month or two, you really get the effects of the control over your breathing and mind as well, because it helps you learn and focus solely on your body and clears disruptive thoughts if done correctly.
Mind you that it doesn’t cost anything for you to try it and it is 10-15 minutes per day.
Another thing that helps is to eat earlier. Because if you eat late after 20:00, often our body gets a serge of energy and speeds up the metabolism late at night. So I prefer to eat before 19:00, between 17:00 and 18:00.
Next is writing down your thoughts about her. Use this opportunity before bedtime. Make a list of things you liked about your life with her and use it as learning opportunity. Maybe there were some downsides and your love burned too quickly. Just let go and write everything positive or negative that comes to mind at that moment and which is related to her. It helps a lot to take the mental load off your brain and mind.
And the last thing that I will recommend is reading a book for an hour or something like that. The cool thing with reading is that you can choose the book or the topic of reading. It develops your imagination and if you focus read, it actually exhausts you mentally, because you constantly paint a picture in your head, which at the same time requires mental effort and distracts you from other thoughts. Think of it as a mental gym work. I love it. And the key for it to work is – read slow enough to be able to imagine enough. Podcasts and audio books have their own pace and you have to focus on listening at a certain speed. But with reading you have your own pace and you can stop to daydream or to think about certain quotes.
And something from my experience – time will help you go through and will fade away the feelings, just keep going and don’t disrupt your life too much over it.
I understood that she made a bad decision by letting me go. In extension, she did me a huge favor.
If she somehow leveled up past me… i should be happy for her! Hell, it could be motivation for me to boss up and get even better!
Some weed or melatonin might help. I’d also suggest deleting pictures, notes on your phone, social media for a bit so you dont reminisce. Some alcohol is fine, just don’t make it a habit of drinking in excess every night.
Really, avoid shit that makes you think of her. And talk with your people about why the break up was the right decision.
And when you’re ready… start dating. It’s helped me heal/move on way faster than I’ve anticipated.
Note your timeline may vary. Some people say a week for every month you were together, I think rules of thumb are bullshit. Do what feels good.
For me, I started dating like 2 weeks after a 3.5 year relationship… hindsight, not a good idea. But now, 3 months after the break up, I’m in a really good spot to date.